Jimmie Fay Sullivan offers a friend’s dog a treat as her own dog, Precious, looks on Tuesday outside her RV parked with 32 others at Magnolia RV Park. Jimmie Fay Sullivan and her husband, Ed Sullivan, travel with the Southeast Region International Teton Club.(Melanie Duncan Thortis The Vicksburg Post)

[4/21/04]Ed Sullivan may seem like a modern-day vagabond, but the Air Force veteran and U.S. Postal Service retiree is a member of a club that just happens to like to travel almost all the time.

Sullivan and his wife, Jimmie Fay, are members of the Southeast Region of the International Teton Club. The group was in Vicksburg for a week for the annual rally of the Southeastern Region. There are four regions and four rallies.

“Each region holds a rally once a year,” Sullivan said. There are 31 rigs attending this year’s rally, and they have made the Magnolia RV Park on Miller Street their headquarters.

The club gets its name from the manufacturer of the RVs, Teton Homes of Casper, Wyo. The company got its start building much less luxurious units to provide housing for oilfield workers. Since its founding in 1967, the company specialized in the construction of what are called fifth-wheel recreational vehicles. A fifth wheel is an RV that requires a heavy duty truck a one-ton pickup or larger for towing with the hitch located over the back wheels instead of attached to the rear of the tow vehicle.

Sullivan said the rigs making the rally in Vicksburg vary from 33 feet long to one that extends a full 48 feet from front to back.

The rigs weigh from about 19,000 pounds to about 24,000 pounds, and Sullivan said pulling one with a one-ton pickup is “white-knuckle driving.” Many Teton owners buy Freightliner, Peterbilt, International or other 18-wheeler tractors to pull their rigs for safety.

“My Freightliner is like sitting in your lounge chair,” Sullivan said. “I’ve got air brakes on it … the trailer’s got electric brakes.”

Most of the people attending the Vicksburg rally are from the Southeast, but Sullivan said they have people from other regions, pointing out there are two rigs from Canada and one from New Jersey.

He said 65 to 75 percent of the Teton Club members are retirees, and 90 to 95 percent of the retired people use their Tetons as homes and simply travel from one RV park or rally to another all year long.

“The Southwest Rally starts four days after we end here in Tucson, Arizona, and two or three rigs will head there,” he said.

Sullivan said the planners of the rally had a full week of activities planned, from a welcome by Mayor Laurence Leyens Monday to a tour of the Vicksburg National Military Park Tuesday. Also planned are a free day for shopping and sightseeing today, a briefing by someone from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center Thursday. On Saturday, their last day in Vicksburg, the club will have a regional business meeting and a fish fry.